User:Donald Trung/Niv Horesh + Qing Dynasty coinage (ניב חורש + 清朝貨幣)

This page serves as "the editing history" of the English Wikipedia article "Qing dynasty coinage" and is preserved for attribution.


 * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/946335062...946383059 & https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/946335062...946385804 ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 20:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC).

History
In 1644 the Manchus captured Beijing from the Shun dynasty, and then marched south capturing the forces loyal to the Ming. One of the first monetary policies they enacted was accepting Ming dynasty cash coins at only half the value of Qing dynasty cash coins, because of this Ming era coinage was removed from circulation to be melted into Qing dynasty coinage, this is why in modern times even Song dynasty coins are more common than those from the more recent Ming dynasty.

Early history


At first the Qing government set the exchange rate between bronze and silver at 1 wén of bronze per lí (, or ) of silver, and 1000 lí of silver would be 1 tael, thus one string of 1000 bronze cash coins equated to a single tael of silver.

The Shunzhi Emperor created the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Public Works in Beijing to oversee the casting of bronze cash coins, these ministries produced 400,000 strings of cash coins annually. Later the Shunzhi Emperor ordered military garrisons to start minting their own coinage, and though the official weight for cash coins was first set at 1 qián, in 1645 this increased to 1.2 qián, and by 1651 this had become 1.25 qián. In 1660 the order was given to re-open provincial mints and have them cast their mint names in Manchu script. The standard copper-alloy was 60% copper and 40% lead and/or zinc, yet diverse market conditions dictated what would be the de facto composition. This official composition was officially changed over time, initially it was at a ratio of 3:2 (3 parts copper to 2 parts lead and zinc).

The coins produced under the Shunzhi Emperor were modeled after Tang dynasty Kai Yuan Tong Bao coins, as well as early Ming dynasty coins, and have a Chinese mint mark on their reverses these were produced from 1644 until 1661, though these coins had a large range of mint marks from various provinces all over China, from 1644 until 1645 there were also Shùn Zhì Tōng Bǎo coins being cast with blank reverses.

Kangxi era
Under the Kangxi Emperor in 1662 the government closed all provincial mints with the notable exception of the one in Jiangning, but in 1667 all of the provincial mints were re-opened but many closed down again soon afterwards as the price of copper had steadily increased. Those responsible for the transportation of copper rarely made the mints in time, and while copper prices were rising daily the Ministry of Revenue still maintained a fixed rate of exchange between copper and silver causing many provincial mints to quickly lose money, while on paper they were still profitable.

In 1684 the amount of copper in the alloys if cash coins was reduced from 70% to 60% all while the standard weight was lowered to 1 qián again, while the central government's mints in Beijing started producing cash coins with a weight of 0.7 qián. By 1702 all provincial mints were closed again due to the aforementioned circumstances.

Yongzheng era
Under the Yongzheng Emperor various measures were undertaken to ensure a vast supply of cash coins, though the weight was increased to 1.4 qián per wén, the copper content was lowered from 60% to 50% in 1727. In 1726 the Ministry of Revenue was split into 4 agencies each named after a wind direction, and in 1728 all provincial mints were ordered to open again as only the mint of Yunnan province was operating prior to this order, and finally in 1728 the Ministry of Public Works mint was split into a "new Ministry of Public Works mint", and an "old Ministry of Public Works mint". Though by 1733 the Qing government realised that the costs of making standard cash coins at a weight of 1.4 qián was too much, so they lowered it back to 1.2 qián.

In 1725 the province of Yunnan had 47 operating furnaces. In 1726 the governour of Yunnan, Ortai made the province's coin minting industry more profitable by implementing new systems for regular, and supplemental casting as well as for casting scrap metal making sure that only regular cast coins would carry full production costs, he also closed down mints in the province with a lower production efficiency and started exporting Yunnan's coins to other provinces. This system proved so successful that other provinces started to adopt these reforms.

Qianlong era


During the first few years of the reign of the Qianlong Emperor China had suffered from a shortage of cash coins due to the contemporary scarcity of copper, but soon Yunnan's copper mines started producing a large surplus of copper allowing the Qing government to swiftly increase the money supply and minting more coins at a faster pace. In the middle of the Qianlong era as much as 3,700,000 strings of cash were produced annually. In 1741 coins were ordered to be made of an alloy of 50% copper, 41.5% zinc, 6.5% lead, and 2% tin to reduce the likelihood of people melting down coins to make utensils, all while the Qing government encouraged to sell their utensils to the state mints to be melted into coinage. The addition of the 2% tin caused the Chinese people to dub these cash coins qingqian (青錢, "green cash").

By the end of the Qianlong era, Yunnan's copper mines started depleting the production of cash coins, and the copper content was debased once more. 1794 all provincial mints were forced to close their doors, but subsequently reopened in 1796.

During the Battle of Ngọc Hồi-Đống Đa in 1788 special Qián Lóng Tōng Bǎo coins were minted with An nan (安南) on their reverse sides as a payment for soldiers.

Qianlong coinage in Xinjiang
In 1759 the Qing dynasty had conquered most of what would become the Xinjiang province, as native coinages of the old Khanates were being deprecated in favour of Chinese cash coins, new cash coins made of pure copper to reflect local pūl (ﭘول) coins were minted that were red in colour and weighed 2 qián. Under Qianlong new mints were established in Yining City, Aksu, Yarkant, and Ushi city. Xinjiang coins of the Qianlong era had reverse inscriptions in both Manchu and Turkic scripts. Even after the death of the Qianlong Emperor the Jiaqing Emperor ruled that 1 in 5 coins produced in Xinjiang should bear the inscription Qián Lóng Tōng Bǎo (乾隆通寶) to honour Qianlong, and celebrate his conquest of the region, this rule stayed in place even until the end of the Qing dynasty.

Jiaqing era
Under the Jiaqing Emperor the Chinese population had reached 300,000,000 which was twice as much as just a century prior, famines had plagued the land, the government was corrupt, and hoards of secret Anti-Manchu organisations popped up everywhere, stability would not return until 1803 but this had come at tremendously high costs. The Qing government started to increase quotas for the production of copper cash coins while constantly changing the standard content of the alloys beginning with 60% copper, and 40% zinc in 1796 to 54% copper, 43% zinc, and 3% lead not long after. Corruption plagued the provincial mints, and the exchange rate between cash and taels rose from 900 wén for 1 tael of silver to 1200 wén for a single tael, this was also due to a large outflow of silver to European and American merchants which pressured the Chinese monetary system. Under the Jiaqing Emperor an annual quota of 2,586,000 strings of cash coins for production was set, but in reality this number was rarely met.

Daoguang era
Under the Daoguang Emperor China's silver reserves were depleting due to the trade of opium with other countries, and as Chinese cash coins were based on the silver standard this eventually lead to the debasement of Qing era cash coinage under Daoguang because the costs of producing cast copper coins was higher by about one third than the face value of the cast coins themselves, by 1845 2,000 wén was needed for a single tael of silver. Coins produced under the Daoguang Emperor tend to be diminutive compared to earlier Qing dynasty coinage because of this reason. Under the Daoguang Emperor a new mint was established at Kucha in the Xinjiang province with coins cast there bearing the mark "" as well as coins with the reverse side inscription of "" to circulate within the aforementioned province that was far away from China proper.

Inflation during the 19th century


Under the Xianfeng Emperor several large wars such as the Nian, Miao, Panthay and Taiping rebellions, and the Second Opium War plagued the Qing dynasty, because of the military actions undertaken in these wars copper could no longer be shipped from the south (particularly from the copper rich Yunnan province) leading not only to a debasement of the copper content in cash coins, but also to a large increase in denominations to keep paying for the high military expenditures and other governmental costs, this inevitably lead to large inflation. Various other factors also lead to inflation such as a rapidly increasing population, and famines.

The Xianfeng Emperor also started issuing large quantities of new banknotes, the Hù Bù Guān Piào, and Dà Qīng Bǎo Chāo were issued as a means to pay for the wars fought under Xianfeng, but because of the Qing dynasty's low silver reserves these banknotes couldn't be backed up.

Coinage struck under Xianfeng wasn't standard either though ranging from denominations as low as 1 wén to as high as 1000 wén, it wasn't uncommon for coins with a face value of 50 wén to be heavier than 100 wén coins, and 100 wén coins to be even be heavier than 1000 wén coins. Despite the larger denominations, existing lower denominations were also heavily debased with the 1 wén denomination being standardised back to 1 qián. Despite the larger denominations of 500 and 1000 being ordered to be cast of pure copper, and illegal producers of these coins were executed by the government en masse, the general population still had no faith in the larger denominations (mostly because a 1000 wén coin only had the intrinsic value of twenty 1 wén cash coins), eventually all denominations larger than 10 wén were withdrawn and the 10 wén coins would continue to be minted in Beijing until the reign of the Guangxu Emperor.

Both the inflationary policy of debasing the copper currencies and the issuance of inconvertible paper money were also largely confined to the Beijing capital region and the immediate neighbouring provinces, this was due to the Qing government's limited political control over much of China at the time of Taiping Rebellion. During this era the introduction of the "big cash coins" unit in the capital city made interregional a lot more difficult to conduct because of the regional currency units that existed.

In the year 1883 the imperial government of the Qing dynasty made an attempt to restore the copper-alloy cash coins back to their original units, because the new units had created chaos among private money shops in China who were willing to pay premium copper-alloy cash coins to call back their own privately-produced banknotes that were issued in "Beijing cash" (Jingqian) units. This was done out of a fear of the large capital cost of having to later redeem their banknotes that were based on the previous standards of copper-alloy cash coins.

The coinage issued during the Xianfeng period were both limited in number and in their commercial use. During the entire eleven years of the Xianfeng era there has been an estimated total output of 18,789,580 strings including standard copper-alloy cash coins (Zhiqian), large denomination cash coins (Daqian), and iron cash coins (Tieqian), this was the equivalent to around 9,400,000 taels of silver (based on the official government exchange rate). As the average annual expenditures of the imperial government were around 11,800,000 taels of silver during "normal years" of 1821 to 1850, the production numbers of the debased metal coinages of the Xianfeng era were unable to have relieved the fiscal pressure felt by the government of the Qing dynasty to any significant extent.

Moreover, the debased cash coins themselves could hardly be used for any important government expenditures as these were usually conducted in silver. These debased cash coinages were instead used to pay for the salaries of government workers (including military personnel), making sure that in nominal figures the salary payments seemed to have been unaffected by any actual budget cut.

The seigniorage revenue that is generated by debasement can be quite a lucrative endeavour for the mint if the debasement compels the market in which these debased coins circulate are motivated to bring metal and old coins back into the mint to then have them be reminted into new and lighter (debased) coins. However, in case of the imperial mints during the Xianfeng period, the mints did not remint any old coins at all, meaning that they missed out on these seigniorage profits, which demonstrates that Gresham’s Law took place in China. The reminting process of old relatively high value Zhiqian nonetheless took place during the Xianfeng era via large-scale counterfeiting which would eventually eliminated all Zhiqian from the Beijing market. In this sense, during the Xianfeng reign era lucrative seigniorage revenues did occur in China as a consequence of the debasement of Chinese cash coins, but rather than originally led by the Qing government, the profit went into the private hands of the counterfeiters rather than in the hands of the imperial government.

Tongzhi era
For the first year of the Tongzhi Emperor he bore the reign name of "Qixiang" (祺祥), though a few coins with this inscription were cast they were never put into circulation. While the reign title "Qixiang" the 10 wén Daqian continued to be produced, for a brief period of time Daqian with the inscription Qixiang Zhongbao (祺祥重寶) were produced. Because the Qixiang era name wasn't used for that long, cash coins with this era date were cast for such a short time, that only a small number of the government mints produced cash coins with this inscription. These mints included the Ministry of Public Works Mint (寶源), the Ministry of Revenue Mint (寶泉), the Yunnan mint (寶雲), the Gansu mint (寶鞏), and the Suzhou mint (寶蘇).

Tongzhi's mother the Empress Dowager Cixi changed his reign name to Tongzhi in 1862. Tongzhi's reign saw the end of the Taiping rebellion and the beginning of a large Muslim revolt in Xinjiang. The era also saw the rise of the Self-Strengthening Movement which wanted to adopt western ideas into practice in China including reforming the monetary system.

The coins produced under the Tongzhi Emperor remained of inferior quality with the 10 wén coin being reduced from 4.4 to 3.2 qián in 1867. Copper shortages remained and illegal casting would only become a larger problem as the provincial mints remained closed or barely productive. The first machine-struck cash coins were also produced under the Tongzhi Emperor in Paris at the request of governour Zuo Zongtang in 1866, but the government of the Qing refused to introduce machine-made coinage.

Modernisation under the Guangxu Emperor


Under the Guangxu Emperor various attempts at reforming the Qing dynasty's currency system were implemented. Machine-made copper coins without square holes were introduced in Guangdong province in 1899, and by 1906 15 machine operated mints operated in 12 provinces. The introduction of these machine-struck coins marked the beginning of the end of coin casting in China. In 1895 the Guangzhou Machine Mint had 90 presses becoming the largest mint in the world followed by the British Royal Mint with only 16 presses.

Many provinces were still slow to adopt machine mints, often due to the high costs associated with them, the machine mint of Tianjin cost 27,000 taels of silver but the cost of making a single string of machine-struck 1 qián cash coins more than twice as high as their face value forcing the Tianjin mint to buy more furnaces until it eventually had to close down in 1900.

Guangxu's reign saw the reclamation of Xinjiang and the presuming of minting red cash there, while Japanese experts revitalised the copper mining industry in Yunnan and many new veins of copper were discovered giving the government more resources to cast (and later strike) coins again.

The new coins often bore the inscription Guāng Xù Yuán Bǎo (光緒元寶) with an image of a Dragon and featured English, Chinese, and Manchu inscriptions. Further these coins tended to have their relation with China's older coinages (most often with cash coins) on the bottom, or their value in relation to silver coinage, and the Manchu words indicated the place of mintage. Meanwhile, the 10 wén "traditional" cash coins were discontinued as the production of these more modern coins began.

In 1906 the General Mint of the Ministry of the Interior and Finance in Tianjin started issuing a new copper coin called the Dà Qīng Tóng Bì (大清銅幣), which like Guāng Xù Yuán Bǎo coins featured the image of a Chinese dragon, and had English, Chinese, and Manchu inscriptions with the English inscription reading "Tai-Ching-Ti-Kuo Copper Coin" in Wade-Giles, coins minted under the Guangxu Emperor featured the inscription of the Chinese characters Guāng Xù Nián Zào (光緒年造). These coins were minted in denominations of 2 wén, 5 wén, 10 wén, and 20 wén and would soon be issued by various mints across the Chinese provinces. These coins were first issued by the Ministry of the Interior and later by the Ministry of Revenue and Expenditure.

Coinage under the Xuantong Emperor


Under the Xuantong Emperor both traditional copper cash coins, and modern machine-struck coins continued to be minted simultaneously, though only the Ministry of Revenue in Beijing and a few provincial mints continued to cast traditional cash coins as most mints had started to exclusively produce machined coins, and Kucha was the only mint still operating in Xinjiang casting "red cash" under the Xuantong Emperor. Under the Xuantong Emperor Beijing's 2 central government operated mints would close. In 1910 new machine-made coins were issued.

New denominations introduced in 1910 include:

These denominations weren't produced in large numbers as the Qing dynasty would be overthrown by the Xinhai revolution only a year later. By the end of the Qing dynasty the government's attempts at modernising the monetary system had failed and machined coins circulated alongside traditional coinages, this situation would continue under the Republic of China.

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